Male Dereliction (Part C)

For the women, you've got to be saying, yeah, go Deborah. But that's not what the story is about. It's not a competition. We get sucked into that. You want to make a marriage struggle? Compete with each other. That's friction.

Rubbing against each other the wrong way, opposite directions. Not so much of yourselves, but opposite of God. God did not say to Adam, you need a competitor. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Judges.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick with a continuing study called Male Dereliction in Judges, Chapter 4. Verse 9, so she said, I will surely go with you.

Nevertheless, there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking. Stop right there. She got it.

She understood. Does this is a chance for glory? No guts, no glory, Barak. You've got this chance. Don't throw it away, lad.

He throws it away. Nonetheless, she says, for Yahweh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kadesh. Fine, I'll go, because the people, I'm the mother, the people got to win if that's what it takes.

But you blew it. And, by the way, Sisera is a really bad guy. A woman's going to take him out, Barak, not you.

That's, again, not an insult, but it's a male-dominated society. The roles are clearly defined. They're clear. And if you move to the left or right of them, so is the violation of the clear assignment. And so she rebukes him.

That's what this is. She doesn't, you know, crush him. She lets the events do that for her, because they will. And forever, that will be in the back of his mind.

He was told that the victory over Sisera would be given. He would not share in the fullness of it that God wanted him to. That scares me.

God has a plan for your life. Oh yeah, well, I don't know what it is all the time, not all, not the details, but I want every, much of it, I don't want to be negligent. I think, I think Deborah was a little irked.

I do, I mean, I think she's a little disturbed by this. Hebrews, chapter 11, where I mentioned it will remember Barak and not her, says, And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets. So when it says, For time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak, every man's man would stop there in his thinking and reading that verse and say, I don't want to be like Samson.

I don't want to be like Barak. Of those names listed, those two men, I don't want to be like, but, but, if I fail, for whatever reasons, I still see that I'm not crushed. That the mercy of God took these men and still said, they're heroes of faith. What an encouragement if you failed serving God, man or female. What an encouragement if you have come up short and God still puts your name in this list with David and Samuel.

Wow, that's encouraging. Because if you're going to do anything for the Lord, you're going to fail. Barak would have assumed that Deborah was talking about herself when she said, the victory will go to a woman. Those aren't the exact words. I will just read it again. She said, For the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. Now the thought we would get, well, that's Deborah.

She's going to get the credit, but that's not how it's going to play out. Catching us all by surprise when we get down to verses 18 through 22. Oswald Chambers has something to say about how God fashions us.

I think it's pretty insightful. He says, We are not quite prepared for the blows which must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision. We have seen what we are not and what God wants us to be.

We're not willing to have the vision battered into shape and use by God. The batterings always come in commonplace ways and through commonplace people. It's going to come through Jael, she's a commonplace person.

Verse 10, And Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kadesh, and he went up with ten thousand men under his command, and Deborah went up with him. There's another zinger. For the men, for the women, you've got to be saying, Yeah, go Deborah. But that's not what the story is about. It's not a competition. We get sucked into that. You want to make a marriage struggle? Compete with each other. That's friction.

Rubbing against each other the wrong way, opposite directions. Not so much of yourselves, but opposite of God. God did not say to Adam, You need a competitor.

Barak enlists ten thousand men from his own tribe and Zebulun. That's significant. That means he had some pull. Of course, God was doing this. We never can count God out, but God's not going to work if he has no one to work with. And that's why people cry out for a Savior, for a Deliverer.

In Israel, they were doing it, of course, in judges all the time. Later, the other tribes will join in. Benjamin and Ephraim, Manasseh East, Issachar. They will knock the numbers up to forty thousand. Four tribes will refuse to show up.

Again, the men being negligent, failing. Reuben, Dan, Asher, and Manasseh. Manasseh West will go to battle. Manasseh East will not.

The east on the Jordan side of the, the east side of the Jordan. They will not show up. And Deborah will rebuke them. When she writes her chapter five, when we get to chapter five, she doesn't forget it. She, she puts it into Sonya. This is going into writing, into history.

Verse eleven, Now Heber the Canaanite, the son of, Heber the Canaanite, of the children of Chodbad, the father-in-law of Moses, had separated himself from the Canaanites, or the Kenites, that is, and pitched his tent near the Tiramith tree of Zayinam, which is beside Kadesh. Yeah, these names, they break the flow. I mean, the mines going, and you get these names, like speed bumps all over the place. Speed bumps that Indy, you know. Oh, man.

I don't know what the flag is they wave when there's a wreck. Don't shoot me for that. Anyway, that's what it does to me. Well, this is a big part of the story, actually. This Heber, you know, if you just casually read it, you say, why is he even putting his name in there? Well, it is his wife that ultimately brings down Sisera, the woman whom Deborah prophesied would get the victory over Sisera. But these are the Kenites. They go back to the days of Moses with his father-in-law, and they stayed with the Jews, where the Jews traveled through the wilderness. The Kenites are right there with them. But Heber decides, you know, I don't like my clan anymore.

I'm going to leave them. And he packs up his clan, and he moves away, and he lines up with the enemies of God's people, which in this case is of Jabin, with Sisera his general. And that's how they get into the story. He has an alliance, a friendship there, that should not be.

He's on the wrong team. What Israel was doing to God by abandoning God and going gravitating to idols, so did Heber the Kenite. And this tree is also mentioned in Joshua chapter 19. It must have been a nice specimen. Anyway, verse 12, and they reported to Sisera that Barak, the son of Ahinoam, had gone up to Mount Tabor, Abinohim.

That's the proper pronunciation of that speed bump. Verse 13, so Sisera gathered together all his chariots, 900 chariots of iron, and all the people who were with him, from you can name the place if you want, to the River Kishon. Here's this giant mechanized army facing them. Unbeknownst to Heber, the Kenite, who betrayed his people, switched teams to the enemy of God's people, unbeknownst to him, he set up the defeat of his newfound friends by bringing his wife with him. And he just didn't see it coming.

He is probably on the battlefield or in the enemy's camp because he's not going to be home when this unfolds. What the Jewish people, or anybody else, what they did not know is that God was going to send the rains and those rains would be chariot traps, like it was in the sea that parted when Moses took the people through and Pharaoh's chariots got bogged down. The Jewish people went across on dry land, the Bible tells us, but by the time the chariots caught up to them, God let the water seep, seep up or out or however it did it, and they got bogged down until the waves came and crushed and drowned them all. Romans 28, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and those who are called according to His purposes. Verse 14, then Deborah said to Barak, Up, for this is the day in which Yahweh has delivered Sisera into your hand. Has not Yahweh gone out before you?

So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him. You got to like that. You got to like she's just up, you know, just boom. She's a mother indeed.

She's kind of perky, I get the impression, the way the historian has captured it, I believe, as it happened. And he, what was he doing? He wasn't up.

He was probably snoring and sleeping, sleeping and snoring. Anyway, no indecisive leadership on her part, no time for that. Verse 15, And Yahweh routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak.

And Sisera alighted from his chariot and fled away on foot. That's significant. Now Judges 5 verses 20 through 20 verse 20 and 22. Let me just turn there and read it. Don't you love when you just open the Bible and turn right to where you want it?

It's wonderful. They fought from the heavens. The stars from their courses fought against Sisera. The torrent of Kishon swept them away.

That ancient torrent, the torrent of Kishon. Oh my soul, march on in strength. Then the horse's hooves pounded the galloping, galloping of his steeds. And then it just continues to build a story. But that part about the rain, the torrent sweeping down, that's what bogged the chariots.

We'll see God throughout Scripture, of course, use nature, which is his creation, to win victories for his people. And that is what's going on here. His chariot gets bogged down. That's why he gets off of it and now he's running. Because if the chariot was rolling the way it should roll, nobody could outrun it. He could get away without being caught and that plan failed. He didn't see this coming when he got up in the morning. Verse 16, but Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Harosheth.

There you go again. And all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword. Not a man was left. This is the time stamp for us.

It tells us it's in the summer months, the dry season. Otherwise, he never would have put his chariots in a place where the rains would have bogged them down. He didn't see it coming. Verse 17, however, Sisera had fled away on foot. That's emphasized. The second time it said to the ten of Jaal, wife of Heber the Kenite, there was peace between Jabin, king of Hazor, and the house of Heber the Kenite. And so that Kenite is being emphasized also because he's not supposed to be on that team. And that's why it's significant to the story. But his chariot is lost and now he's exhausted. That's the idea of emphasizing he's now on foot. He's not in retreat. He's running for his life.

There's a difference. He's scattered from his forces. He's all alone. He's going to be exhausted and dehydrated. When he comes to the tent of Jaal, as it says, however, verse 17, Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jaal. Maybe he had dined there in the past. But now he thinks he's amongst friends. He is wrong. Verse 18, and Jaal went out to meet Sisera and said to him, turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me.

Do not fear. When he had turned aside with her into the tent, she covered him with a blanket. Again, her husband, this is likely her tent living in separate quarters, a separate tent from her husband. And to invite him in to the shelter of his tent was a bold move.

You'd have to be an ally under severe circumstances to make such an invitation. He was desperate. He didn't care about any of that. But she knew by looking at him, there's two ways to look at it. Did she know him already or did she not know him? Well, if she did not know him, she knew who he was by how he was dressed.

In every age, you could tell those who are people of means versus those who are not. And I believe she did know who he was. But she sees him and recognizing that if he is on the run as commander of Jabin's armies, then the Jews are winning. That's a big part of the story. Because she's not going to say what's going to happen to me. If I harbor the defeated general, guess what's going to happen to me, as I mentioned.

But, but if I hand over his head in some form, so what is still attached to his body, then I'm a hero. And she reasons this because that's how the story unfolds for us. This is a wise move on her part, to in an instant deduce that the battle did not go in favor of the enemy, the Jews have broken the chains of the Canaanites.

And she acts on it, verse 19. And she said to, and he said to her, please give me a little water to drink for I am thirsty. So she opened a jug of milk and gave him a drink and covered him. Well, his guard is completely down. He's got the blanket, he's in the tent.

He thinks he's safe amongst friends. Milk instead of water. For me, it works. If I can't sleep, I go have some milk. Not warm milk.

I'm told that works better, but I prefer it cold. This is probably goat's milk. She'll, Deborah will refer to it or add to it that it was a cream, something type of a yogurt milk. Whatever it was, I wouldn't have drunk it because it was disgusting to me.

But some of you drink and eat anything and you see what happened to him. Anyway, this is emphatic. You know, a lot of the commentators don't want to say anything about it. It is emphatic.

You can't get away from it. It's mentioned here in four and it's brought up again in chapter two, chapter five, pardon me, in the song in verse 25. Yes, she's giving him a hospitable reception. She's receiving him in. He's asking for water because he's dehydrated, but she gives him something that's going to help him sleep. He is going to rest in peace completely. Verse 20, and she said to her, and he said to her, stand at the door of the tent and if any man comes and inquires of you and says, is there any man here, you shall say no.

Yeah, still giving orders everybody. Verse 21, I hope he said, you didn't say please. That's what really got her. He didn't ask nicely. Verse 21, and Jael Heber's wife took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand, obviously, and went softly to him and drove the tent peg into his temple and it went down into the ground for he was fast asleep and weary so he died and blood was gushing everywhere squirting up. No, it doesn't say that, but it's pretty graphic if you ask me. We've heard of driving stakes in the vampires.

Well, this is one into Cicero. Clearly, she didn't share her husband's opinion on alliances. At that time, women were largely responsible for pitching the tents and breaking them down. So she would have known where the pegs and hammers were.

She would have been familiar with this and it's not out of the question. It does seem, comparing chapter 5 verses 26 and 7, that it was not an instant blow. It was a debilitating first blow, initial blow, but then it talks about how Cicero falls to her feet. So she probably hit him and he was dead but didn't die instantly and resisted and got up and he drops again and then she drives the pin. I never tried driving a stake through someone's skull in the temple like Deborah will point out it was. I would imagine to get it to go into the ground one strike is not easy for anyone. So I lean towards, there was that initial blow, he was walking dead, resisted a little bit, fell down, died and she finished him off. That's just some of the details.

You may say, no, I think it was one blow, went right through and done him in. That's fine, but then you have to reconcile how it reads in verses 26 and 7 of the next chapter. So this is what it's going to say in Deborah's song about Jael, Judges 5. Most blessed among women is Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite. Blessed is she among women in tents. I like it. I don't know, maybe you don't see it. I'm not going to just, I mean, you either see it or you don't, but I like that Deborah mentions her husband the Kenite.

She sticks that home. He's a traitor. He's a traitor. And his wife wasn't with him.

And that's an interesting thought. Verse 22, and then Barak pursued Sisera. He doesn't know he's dead. Jael came out to meet him.

She's a happy gal. And said to him, come, I will show you the man whom you seek. And when he went into the tent, Jael laid Sisera dead with the tent peg in his temple. And Barak said, gross. He had to say, oh man, this is the prophecy. This is what Deborah said would happen.

I don't know. We don't know much about the man, how he would have done that. I also find it interesting that few men would probably have wanted to face Sisera, sword to sword or knife to knife. He probably was a tough guy.

Because the generals in those days, as in our days too, they're tough men. So it would have been suicidal for Jael to pull out a knife and say, on guard. That would have been it for her. But she has other means.

She uses them. And she wins. So for this general to flee the battlefield is embarrassing. For him to be killed while fleeing the battlefield is humiliating. But to be killed by a woman in that society was disgraceful. And that's what we'll get later in Chapter 9, where he says, kill me, lest it be said a woman kills me.

When a lady dropped a stone on him, a himalek, and kills him. So anyway, that's the sad ending of Sisera, verse 23. So on that day, God subdued Jabin, king of Canaan, in the presence of the children of Israel. Verse 24, in the hand of the children of Israel grew stronger and stronger against Jabin, king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin, king of Canaan. And so they won this massive victory, the battle, but the war was not over.

Jabin, the king, was still in that fortified city at Hazor. But they pulled his teeth and eventually they finished him off. So we have four stories in the book of Judges of women heroines, to the shame of four men. And it is of course this story, Deborah, leading the nation when Barak should have. It's funny, I'm standing there talking, my tongue is itching a little bit, and it's like, we don't even know that. It's not a symptom!

It's just my... Anyway, Jael slaying the traitors. You have Deborah Jael as he slept. And we have the unnamed woman who dropped a stone from the wall and killed wicked Abimelek. And then we have the story of Delilah in the seduction of Samson's secret to his destruction. All of these are very insightful.

You're not going to get away from the dynamics of men and women. It's best to benefit from what the Bible records for us so we can have a chance against being overrun by these things. So next session, we'll get to rejoicing. Deborah's song, she's gonna... gloats not the word, rejoices the word.

She is going to rejoice over this. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Judges. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. If you'd like more information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there and we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app or just follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. That's all the time we have for today. Join us next time to continue learning more from the book of Judges right here on Cross Reference Radio.